


Christmas Cards, or "We Should've Left the Loose Glitter in the Art Room"

by winchysteria



Series: 25 Day Holiday OTP Challenge [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Fluff, M/M, Teacher Castiel, Teacher Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-18
Updated: 2014-12-18
Packaged: 2018-03-01 23:53:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2792270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winchysteria/pseuds/winchysteria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the <a href="http://winchysteria.tumblr.com/post/104120700743/christmas-otp-challenge">25 Day Holiday OTP Challenge</a> by gaytectives on Tumblr- day 2: making christmas cards</p>
            </blockquote>





	Christmas Cards, or "We Should've Left the Loose Glitter in the Art Room"

**Author's Note:**

> [Here I am on tumblr!](http://winchysteria.tumblr.com/)  
>  Fifteen days late, here's Dean and Cas making googly eyes at each other over the heads of some elementary school students.

"Why did we think this was a good idea?" Cas asked, sticking and unsticking his thumb and forefinger.

"I did not think for one second that this was a good idea, Novak. I just want you to remember that while you're trying to get all that Elmer's off your hands later." He was laughing, though, which might have had something to do with all the glue.

Cas covered his face with his hands, groaned loudly, and leaned back from his kitchen table. "I thought it would be nice!"

"And it was," Dean said. "Like, four hours ago. We should've just left the loose glitter in the art room. That was where this  _really_ went off the deep end."

He leaned back too, scrubbing his eyes with the back of his wrists. "We only got, like, four left. We can do this. C'mon, Cas," Dean said, pulling at his friend's forearms in an exaggerated attempt to make eye contact. "C' _mooon-_ "

" _Ow,_ " Castiel said, his hands forcibly separating from his face. "Ow. Ouch. Thanks for that, Dean. I'm afraid parts of my eyebrows have relocated to my fingertips."

Dean laughed again, a short bark of amusement. "Dude, you are literally the only person this would happen to."

"I will thank you to remember that it you were the one who _made it happen_ -" Cas started resentfully, but Dean was already leaning forward into his space, freckles in muted relief in the dim light. Far away, he was handsome, but up close, Dean was dangerous- if Cas looked for too at his Cupid's bow, he would unconsciously start to lean in closer, but if he looked anywhere else, he got drawn to Dean's eyes, which were warm and peridot-green and usually fondly crinkled at the edges and that didn't really make the urge to kiss him any less powerful. After what felt like eternity of six inches' distance from his best friend's face, Dean's eyes scrunched up in amusement.

"Cas," he said, holding back yet another round of laughter. "Cas, you, uh. You got a little something."

He picked something out of Cas' eyebrows and held it where they could both see.

Glitter.

"Not the weirdest place I've found glitter on my body this week."

He tried his damnedest to look neutral, but neither he nor Dean could hold back for longer than a few seconds. They were punchy from hours of work, gallons of coffee, and their inability to be in a truly bad mood around each other, and before long neither of them could breathe or stop wiping away tears. "Oh god," Dean wheezed. "Oh, god. We both need to go the _fuck_ to sleep."

Castiel gained control slowly, swiping the back of his hand under his eyes and looking around at their mess. One end of Dean's kitchen table was buried under layers of cardstock and stickers and colored pencils while the other was barracks for an army of thirty or forty handmade Christmas cards. "Dean, I'm afraid this is going to take a while longer," he said, nodding towards the crafting disaster area. "I bet you're regretting that day you agreed to help me with Kevin."

Dean turned away from the table to look directly at Cas. "Never," he said with disarming seriousness.

Castiel opened his mouth, thought for a moment, and closed it. Just nodding seemed more appropriate than a witty rejoinder.

There was a brief silence before Dean spoke up. "I'm, uhm, gonna hit the hay, I think," he said with an edge of hesitancy. "If we go to sleep right now we can still get like three hours of sleep before we have to get up for work."

Cas nodded again, then shamelessly watched Dean's ass travel off towards the living room. This would be the second time this week he'd slept on Cas's couch, which was pretty much business as usual for the two of them.

No, he couldn't say he regretted that first day with Dean either. Castiel had been the new guy last year, just moved from sixth grade to second with no clue what he was doing with small children, and he'd had Kevin. The principal had helpfully informed him that Kevin "might be difficult- he's had some home issues that have inhibited his learning in the past." Difficult, not really- the tiny, dark-haired boy did what he was told, didn't cause trouble, didn't speak out of turn. But he didn't speak _at all_. Castiel had felt terrible, not really knowing what Kevin needed, and for the first couple of days of school he just kept one eye on him at all times.

That was how he noticed the room across the hallway- the one already papered with crayon drawings, the one full of happy, laughing kids, and the one he'd seen Kevin giddily scamper into ahead of his mother. It started to loom in his mind every time he tried and failed to get Kevin to verbalize, every time he wondered what it was that made the poor kid so unsure of himself he couldn't talk. First grade, Mr. Winchester. He'd let three days go by without a word from his silent student when he finally broke. It had been 4:00 on a Thursday afternoon, and he wondered as he knocked if the inhabitant could hear him over the Led Zeppelin. He could, apparently; the music had suddenly cut out and Castiel had been told to come in. Before he even fully stepped foot in the room, nerves passing sparks under his skin, he had blurted out "You were Kevin Tran's teacher last year, weren't you?"

Then Dean had rounded the corner, gorgeous and wary but warm. Castiel explained in a rockslide of words that that he wanted Kevin to feel comfortable in his classroom and be able to learn but he just didn't know how and it seemed like Kevin liked Dean and he wondered how Dean had established that rapport and then Dean had cut him off mercifully, clapping him on the shoulder and smiling and saying he was glad Kevin was in good hands this year.

That was the beginning. A few conversations over coffee at the end of the school day, some passing-on of wisdom from the Gandalf of elementary school teachers that Dean turned out to be, and now he was the kind of person that Cas could ask to join him on the ill-advised adventure of making every student in his class an individual holiday card. He was also the kind of person that said "yes" to six hours of gluey, glittery torture without missing a beat, mostly because it would make the kids happy and maybe (Castiel hoped helplessly) just a little bit because it would make his friend happy.

Cas was finally finished with his cards, eyes so dry they felt sandy, but he was struck by the urge to make just one more. He sighed, cracked his back, and reached for one last piece of cardstock, feeling reckless in the island of light that was his kitchen table.

* * *

"Morning, Mr. Novak," Dean said, passing Cas one of the two Starbucks cups he held.

"Morning, Mr. Winchester," Castiel replied with a grateful smile. He'd slept late, waking up to an empty couch- he and Dean had learned from experience to make sure they had enough time to run back to their own apartments in the morning. (Becky in the administrative office had a sixth sense for anyone wearing someone else's clothes or the same clothes two days in a row.)

Dean tapped the rim of Castiel's cup with his own before they turned away to enter their own classrooms. Cas found himself humming a little as he unlocked his door, setting the basket of cards down on his desk. They were a mess of glue and crayon and glitter, and there was a reason he wasn't an art teacher, but with any luck the kids would like them. The one on top, the one that made his stomach jump every time he saw it, was a notably less flamboyant. It said Merry Christmas in red and green Sharpie, for appearances, and from the right angle Castiel could see his own careful printing on the inside. He'd probably done that on purpose, made his huge gamble look as unassuming as possible.

He dropped his coat onto his chair and started depositing cards on desks to keep himself busy. The sounds of the school day starting filtered in, locker doors opening and closing, kids giggling as they were whisked out to the playground until first bell. More chaotic than usual, of course, being the last half-day before break, and he was grateful for the way the commotion settled his stomach. Kids were a nice distraction like that.

By the time students started streaming back in for the last morning of class, he had steeled himself. He held the card between his thumb and forefinger like he was going to break it and took up his post by his classroom door. Some of the kids said hi or Merry Christmas or waved as they passed through the door; some barreled in shouting. Kevin gave him a gap-toothed smile and a quiet "Happy Holidays!"

He tried to herd them like he always did, a cautionary hand on the shoulders of the ones going too fast and a smile to the ones that greeted him, but he kept an eye on the room across the hallway. Dean was doing crowd-control himself, but every once in a while he looked back at Cas before they both nervously flicked their gaze away. That was Castiel's last little push, and just as the last of Dean's kids flew into his classroom, Cas crossed the hall, handed Dean the card, and retreated quickly to his own classroom.

He spent the rest of the morning wishing he'd at least caught Dean's expression before he'd hidden in his classroom. Love his profession as he might, Cas could hardly focus on it, occupied instead by a thousand theoretical iterations of those jewel-green eyes wide in horror or scrunched in laughter or closed-off in discomfort. The kids had loved the cards, but he felt glassy as he accepted a chorus of thanks and a few hugs. He bumbled through instructions for the holiday craft, delivered today's story at a monotone, wandered aimlessly around the room as the kids worked on puzzle pages, and felt infinitely grateful that he hadn't planned any real learning for today. Second grade material sounded a little too lofty for his brain's functions this morning.

Finally, mercifully, it was time to line the munchkins up and lead them to the gym. The parents had organized some kind of game-playing, sugar-binging, last-hurrah party for the kids to be picked up from. Thank god. His bunch fell in like so many ducklings behind him, tolerant of order in anticipation of some truly satisfying mayhem; he walked into the hallway's sea of children like a very vacant. Castiel very consciously did not try to locate Dean.

The gym was beautiful, overenthusiastically strewn with tinsel and cookies in a way that struck him as very appropriate to an elementary school. He passed along his compliments to Anna's moms, who took charge of his small army to lead them to the snacks. Castiel hovered near the bleachers and pretended not to watch them. Mostly they were happy-jostling, chattering to each other in little clusters. Kevin fidgeted nervously, clearly not at ease with the crowds, but staying engaged.

And then there was Dean, and if Cas thought he'd gotten anything out of his system by writing that card, he was dead wrong. His nerves lit up again. Dean grinned widely at Kevin, ruffled his hair with a gentle hand, pursed his lips as he listened to Kevin talk, was beautiful in general. Castiel registered Kevin turning and pointing. He knew before it happened that Dean was going to look at him then, but it didn't stop him from feeling lightning-struck when they locked eyes.

Cas couldn't stomach looking at Dean's face then, either. He looked down into his styrofoam cup of coffee, swirling it around gently but with great focus. Before very long, there was a broad-shouldered presence leaning against the bleachers next to him. It was just as comforting as it was nerve-wracking, and Castiel hardly needed to glance over and check to know that it was Dean.

He kept swirling his coffee.

"You know you're a dick?" Dean asked.

Cas started. It wasn't any worse of an opening statement than the one's he'd been imagining all day, but it was still startling. Not a punch to the gut so much as the moment between falling and figuring out if you've hurt yourself.

Dean didn't seem to need a reply to continue. "You made it  _really_ hard to do my job today, man. I kept thinking about what you said, about wishing you would have, uh, kissed me when you had- you know-"

Out of the corner of his eye, Cas saw Dean gesture towards the area around his eyebrows. He nodded.

"Well, I mean, I guess-" Dean seemed to run out of words but tried again. "How long, Cas?"

Castiel took a sip of his coffee, feeling Dean's eyes on the side of his face like brands. "Nine months? Maybe a year. I don't know how long it took me to notice."

"Cas, I gotta tell you-"

"Dean, we're technically done for break, so if this conversation is better had in the hallway, we can-"

"Yeah, good idea," Dean said, straightening up almost immediately. His fingers caught on Cas' elbow for half a second before he headed for the doors, but it took Castiel a moment longer to gather his courage and follow.

The door was still swinging as Cas stepped through. He glanced around, barely caught a glimpse of Dean coming closer with intent in his eyes, and then he was being kissed breathless. Castiel stumbled backward a little before his brain caught up, but it was the most natural thing in the world to wind an arm around Dean's waist for balance and another under his shoulder to pull him in closer. Kissing Dean was fantastic and addicting and desperate; he felt soft and strong at once with his hand in Cas' hair and his tongue pushing into Cas' mouth. Muscles moved under his touch as he slid a hand up to grab the front of Dean's shirt.

Castiel got lost, and either thirty seconds or five minutes into the kiss he tilted his chin down to break it off. He felt ridiculous as he heaved a breath, like Dean was sucking the oxygen out of the hallway, but he couldn't stop smiling.

Dean knocked a knuckle against Cas' chin gently, guiding him back to eye contact. "You okay?"

"You were going to tell me something," Castiel said in reply. "In the gym. What was it?"

Dean huffed a laugh, then pressed another kiss to Cas' mouth- something sure and firm but lingering. He smiled as he pulled away, could hardly help it when Cas was grinning up at him. "I was going to say- love you too, you smug bastard."

They left the school half an hour later with unbuttoned pants under their winter coats.

Dean did not sleep on the couch.


End file.
